A YOUNG boy screamed as a man in his 30s bound his hands and legs with tape, an assault trial heard yesterday.

The child’s brother told the court: “My brother was screaming – not in a happy way.

“He seemed angry and upset.”

Jim Menzies, 35, denies putting tape on the young boy’s hands and feet and assaulting him by putting him in a bag, hanging it on a wall and repeatedly punching him on the body.

The alleged victim was five or six at the time, the court has heard. He is now eight.

The brother, 15, told Livingston Sheriff Court the incident began after Menzies told the younger boy to go to his room and he refused.

He said Menzies told a friend of his, called Ryan, to get the tape, which he described as “black sellotape”.

He added: “Jim grabbed it off him and started tying my brother’s hands and legs together.”

The brother said Menzies, described as a family friend, lifted the boy up and put him in a large bag in the hall. He said: “It was about the size of a suitcase. Jim put it on a peg at nearly ceiling height.

“Then he starts punching the bag – more than 10 times. They were about medium punches.”

The brother said he felt angry but did not intervene. He said Menzies left the boy in the bag for about five minutes before Ryan took it down.

The 15-year-old said his little brother had “bruises all up and down his body” after being punched on a daily basis by Menzies.

He added that he himself had been repeatedly punched by Menzies and given “dead arms” and “dead legs”.

The 15-year-old said: “He’d pin me down to the ground. He was sitting on the bottom of my legs.

“It happened nine or 10 times. It was five or six medium force punches to one arm or leg at a time.”

Menzies, of East Whitburn, West Lothian, also denies assaulting the older boy.

The 15-year-old said he told his mum what was happening but she “never had time to listen for about four times”. When she finally showed interest, she reacted with shock and “nearly started crying”.

Earlier, under cross-examination by the defence, the younger boy said he laughed inside the bag as Menzies used four nails to suspend him upside-down from the hall ceiling.

He admitted not giving police and a social worker details of the tape incident when interviewed last year. He said: “It was the first thing Jim done to me and I thought we were having a carry-on.”